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Agnosticism

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The term agnosticism and the related agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869, who says in "Agnosticism and Christianity" (1899) that agnostics rightly deny and repudiate, as immoral, any religious doctrine like Christianity for example, that there are statements like the tenets of Christianity for example, that people ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence.

Since anyone who is not theist is atheist agnostics are atheist too.

Some point out the fact that there is nothing distinctive in being an agnostic because even theists do not claim to know that a god exists, only to believe there might be one, and many even agree there is room for doubt; and atheists in the broader sense do not claim to know there is no God, only to not believe there might be one as theists do.


Some philosophical opinions

Among the most famous agnostics (in the original sense) have been Thomas Henry Huxley, Charles Darwin, and Bertrand Russell. Some have argued from the works of David Hume, especially Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, that he was an agnostic, but this remains subject to debate.


Thomas Henry Huxley

Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley to sum up his thoughts on contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer). It is important, therefore, to discover Huxley's own views on the matter. Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively:

I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter. . . .
It is no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions. . . .
That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true. But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal subtleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth.

And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863:

I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the relation of a Father [who] loves us and cares for us as Christianity asserts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, immortality of soul and future state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection can I—who am compelled perforce to believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force, and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and punishments for our deeds—have to these doctrines? Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.

Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave (Coll. Ess. v. pp. 237-239) the following account:

So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.

Huxley's agnosticism is believed to be a natural consequence of the intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 1860s, when clerical intolerance was trying to suppress scientific discoveries which appeared to clash with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis and other established Jewish and Christian doctrines. Agnosticism should not, however, be confused with natural theology, deism, pantheism, or other science positive forms of theism.

By way of clarification, Huxley states, "In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable" (Huxley, Agnosticism, 1889).

A. W. Momerie has noted that this is nothing but a definition of honesty.

In "Agnosticism and Christianity" (1899) Huxley makes it clear that agnosticism has nothing to do with knowledge of the existence of a god or gods, rather it is the denial and repudiation of religious belief, when he says that agnostics rightfully deny and repudiate any doctrine like Christianity for example, that there are propositions like the tenets of Christianity for example, that people ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence. [1]


Charles Darwin

In 1879, as Darwin was writing his autobiography, a letter came asking if he believed in God and if theism and evolution were compatible. He replied that a man "can be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist," citing Charles Kingsley and Asa Gray as examples. As for himself, he had "never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God". He added, "I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be a more correct description of my state of mind."

On Thursday, September 28, 1881, Darwin was visited by the atheist Doctor Ludwig Büchner and Edward Aveling (later the partner of Eleanor Marx). Darwin's son Frank was present, and Darwin's wife Emma invited their old friend the Reverend Brodie Innes. Darwin wittily explained that "[Brodie] & I have been fast friends for 30 years. We never thoroughly agreed on any subject but once and then we looked at each other and thought one of us must be very ill." In discussions after dinner Darwin asked his guests, "Why do you call yourselves Atheists?" saying that he preferred the word "Agnostic." Aveling replied that "Agnostic was but Atheist writ respectable, and Atheist was only Agnostic writ aggressive." Darwin responded by asking, "Why should you be so aggressive?" wondering what was to be gained from forcing new ideas on people when freethought was "all very well" for the educated, but were ordinary people "ripe for it?" Aveling then asked what if "the revolutionary truths of Natural and Sexual Selection" had been confined to the "judicious few" and he had delayed publication of the Origin of Species, where would the world be? Surely "his own illustrious example" encouraged freethinkers to proclaim truth "abroad from the house-tops." But while Darwin agreed that Christianity was "not supported by the evidence," he had been in no rush to force this idea on anyone and, in fact, "I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age."

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell's pamphlet, Why I Am Not a Christian, based on a speech delivered in 1927 and later included in a book of the same title, is considered a classic statement of agnosticism. The essay briefly lays out Russell’s objections to some of the arguments for the existence of God before discussing his moral objections to Christian teachings. He then calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look fair and square at the world," with a "fearless attitude and a free intelligence."

In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on The existence and nature of God, in which he characterised himself as an agnostic. He said:

The existence and nature of God is a subject of which I can discuss only half. If one arrives at a negative conclusion concerning the first part of the question, the second part of the question does not arise; and my position, as you may have gathered, is a negative one on this matter. (Collected Papers, Vol 10, p.255)

However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states:

That sort of God is, I think, not one that can actually be disproved, as I think the omnipotent and benevolent creator can. (p.258)

In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (subtitled A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas), he ruminates on the problem of what to call himself:

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

In his 1953 essay, What Is An Agnostic? Russell states:

An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.

However, later in the essay, Russell says:

I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence.

Note that he didn't say "supreme" or "supernatural" intelligence, as these terms are metaphysically loaded.

For Russell, then, agnosticism doesn't necessarily assert that it is in principle impossible to know whether or not there is a God. Moreover, "An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists."

Logical positivism

Logical positivists, such as Rudolph Carnap and A. J. Ayer, are sometimes thought to be agnostic. Using arguments reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s famous "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," they viewed any talk of gods as literally nonsense. For the logical positivists and adherents of similar schools of thought, statements about religious or other transcendent experiences could not have a truth value and were deemed to be without meaning. But this includes all utterances about God, even those agnostic statements that deny knowledge of God is possible. In Language, Truth and Logic Ayer explicitly rejects agnosticism on the grounds that an agnostic, despite claiming that knowledge of God is not possible, nevertheless holds that statements about God have meaning. This position, however, is valid only in the case of agnostics who define their agnosticism in this fashion. Ignostics define agnosticism in a manner consistent with the logical positivist view, holding theism to be incoherent.

Books cited

  • Collected Essays, Thomas Huxley, ISBN 1855069229
  • Man's Place In Nature, Thomas Huxley, ISBN 037575847X
  • Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, ISBN 0671203231
  • Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume, ISBN 0140445366
  • Language, Truth, and Logic, A.J. Ayer, ISBN 0486200108
  • Atheism, the Case Against God, George H. Smith, ISBN 0-87975-124-X

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Agnosticism.
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